The Two Most Damaging Emotions to Physical and Emotional Well-Being

The Two Most Damaging Emotions to Physical and Emotional Well-Being
by Dr. John Demartini

The two basic emotions, fear and guilt, are the most challenging emotions affecting our overall physical and emotional well-being. They can sabotage our vitality, imbalance our physiology and rob us of our inner poise. These two principle emotional feelings have been demonstrated to underlie the full spectrum and ever-growing number of psychosomatic illnesses.

Fear, an emotion involving a distorted imagination of the future, arises when we assume unrealistically that we are about to experience more loss than gain, more drawback than benefit, more negative than positive, or more pain than pleasure. It results from an imbalanced 'pro-jection' onto the future. It arises when we have been unwilling to look for the equilibrating gains, benefits, positives, and pleasures in advance, which bring our lives into harmony.

Guilt, an emotion involving a distorted memory of the past, arises when we unrealistically assume that we have caused ourselves, or others, more loss than gain, more drawback than benefit, more negative than positive, or more pain than pleasure. It results from an imbalanced 're-jection' onto the past. It arises when we have been unwilling to look for the equilibrating gains, benefits, positives, and pleasures in advance, which brings our lives into order.

Every event has two sides, both a positive and a negative. It is our accountability to find these two sides equally with our minds. Our emotions correspondingly fluctuate with our mind's perceptions. We can become victims of personal circumstances and ill when we don't find the balance or we can achieve victory and well being when this inherent balance has been truly discovered.

We have the power to heal within our own minds and hearts. Just as imbalanced emotional feelings can result in fear and guilt and can lead us into illness, the balanced feelings of love and appreciation can bring about our return to wellness. Love and gratitude can fortify our immune systems and initiate physiological poise throughout our body. Perfectly balanced perceptions give us the feelings that all is in order. Gratitude is therefore the key to our hearts and the pathway to our soul.